Lease On Life

Real estate & business

Affordable Rentals Scarce In Lake

October 25, 1998|By Yuki Noguchi of The Sentinel Staff

TAVARES - Patricia Marshall desperately needed a new home.

The mother of three teenagers recently had to move out of her Lady Lake apartment, but she was having a hard time finding a three-bedroom rental for anything close to $525 a month in Leesburg - the amount she could afford in the area she wanted to move.

``I've called every Realtor in the book,'' she said, as her search continued. No luck.

Marshall is not alone.

Lake County has a perpetual dearth of all kinds of rental housing - apartments, homes and seasonal residences, said Lynn Garcia, property manager for ERA Neil Fischer Realty Inc. in Leesburg.

``If a builder could build a complex of rentals in the $500 to $600 price range, you wouldn't have a vacancy,'' Garcia said. At least 15 interested renters call her office every day, she said.

There's already a long waiting list for people trying to rent in Sleepy Hollow, an 80-unit complex of two- and three-bedroom apartments still under construction in Leesburg. Neil Fischer Realty started managing the complex in July.

Realtors throughout Lake County get deluged by rental seekers.

``I'm all booked up with my 30 rental properties,'' said Judy Cockrell, property manager for Century 21 The Pendergast Group Inc. in Tavares. At least half a dozen callers a day ask about renting a home or apartment, but she usually has no vacancies and refers them to other Realtors, she said.

Lake County's population has increased from about 69,000 in 1970 to almost 200,000 today.

The problem is that developers are lagging way behind an ever-increasing demand for rental properties, said Peter Pendergast, owner-broker at Century 21.

Up until now, tax laws have made it relatively undesirable to invest in rental properties in the county, but the demand for moderate-income housing is at a point now where the need for rentals can't be ignored, Pendergast said.

And developers are finally jumping on that bandwagon.

In the next two years, several hundred apartments should go up in Lake, according to John Zagame, project manager for Jaymark Development Inc. in Clermont.

Market studies show there is a demand for just about every kind of rental: family, retirement, high-end luxury and low-end subsidized, he said.

In the past year, the development community has been scrambling to catch up with massive growth, especially in the areas of Clermont, Groveland and Montverde, he said.

The hilly topography of south Lake, and the low number of dwelling units per acre permitted under zoning laws, limit the number of rental units that can be built, Zagame said.

The dwelling unit limitation averages seven per acre in Lake County, said Susan Strum, principal planner for the Lake County Department of Growth Management in Tavares. By contrast, Orange County's average is in the 20s and, in some areas, as many as 100 residential units per acre are allowed, she said.

Another problem is the nature of real estate as an investment.

In recent years, the bull market has made the stock market a more attractive option, said Jim Thigpen, a real estate specialist in Sumter County. Now, with the blue-chip market wavering, developers may turn again to building, he said.

When Bill Gamble saw that the inventory of rental homes for young professionals in the Lake County area was so low, he thought about developing his own land in Fruitland Park.

But ``getting a return on investment is tough'' because builders have to pay impact fees while getting lower rent for their properties than is charged for comparable rentals in neighboring counties, said Gamble, a property manager for ERA Tom Grizzard Inc. in Leesburg.

Also, in order to build on the property, he would have had to put in infrastructure: roads, sidewalks, utilities and landscaping. All of that made it too expensive, he said.

For that and other reasons, those seeking rental properties in Lake - like those on a long waiting list of renters signed up for apartments at fully occupied Southlake Apartments in Clermont - will have to hunt a little harder.